Well, the truth is I don't really know if this is a past life song or
not, but I discovered it just a few days ago and I do know it brings me
weird feelings.
I was checking my news feed in Facebook and someone had posted this great video in a group dedicated to Tolkien:
The
first time I heard it, it was just the rhythm and the male deep voices.
I knew it sounded like German. The second time I noticed it has
something that makes you think of war, somehow it reminded me of my past
life as a Scottish warrior, it is the kind of song you would sing
before a battle, to cheer up and keep the fear away.
Then
I researched the band. I found out their songs are inspired in Vikings
and the German mythology, and they show a lot of Viking scenes in their
videos. Their music is a bit too hard for me. I prefer progressive rock
and more melodic songs, but anyway I love how they use violins and how
they merge all the male voices. And they are Dutch.
I wanted to sing along, so I went a step farther and looked for the lyrics. Here they are:
VOLKSLIED
Gelders dreven zijn de mooiste In ons dierbaar Nederland Vette klei en heidegronden Beken, bos en heuvelrand Ginds de Waal, daar weer de ijssel, Dan de Maas en ook de Rijn Geeft ons recht om heel ons leven Trots op Gelderland te zijn
Waar het vaderland bebouwd werd Door den Saksischen Germaan, Daar werd onze stam geboren, Daar is Gelderland ontstaan En het graan dat thans geoogst wordt Waar het woest en wild eens was Geeft ons recht om trots te wezen Op ons echte Gelders ras
In de dorpen en de steden Tussen Brabant en de zee Tussen Utrecht en Westfalen Heerst de welvaart en de vree Met je kerken en kastelen, Met je huisjes aan de dijk, Gelderland jij bent de parel Van ons Nederlands koninkrijk
Ginds de Waal, daar weer de ijssel, Dan de Maas en ook de Rijn Geeft ons recht om heel ons leven Trots op Gelderland te zijn
For some reason, they make me smile.
Then
one of those nights I went to bed and started to have some flashes,
though I don't think they are past life related. They were images of
warriors, battles, very similar to the ones I had seen in those music
videos, so I just can't give them too much importance right now.
However, I have the feeling I may have a hidden past life here, or even
several, as sometimes I feel as a woman who just loves these men who are
so brave and strong and try to keep her safe, her and the rest of
women. They feel a bit like my Celtic life, in which my father died in a
fight, but I don't think they fit here. And other times I also feel
like one of those warriors, I feel them as my mates, I am proud of them
and I know we protect each other, I know we would die for one
another.
I also found the translation of those lyrics.
VOLKSLIED
The droveways* of Gelder* are the
most beautiful In our dear Netherlands
Rich clay and moorlands
Streams, woods and hillside
Yonder the Waal*, there the Ijssel*,
Then the Maas and the Rhine as well
Give us the right to, all our lives,
Be proud of Gelderland
Where the fatherland was cultivated
By the Saxon Germanic,
That is where our tribe was born,
That is where Gelderland arose
And the grain that is now harvested
Where the savage wilderness once was
Gives us the right to be proud
Of our true Gelder race
In the villages and cities
Between Brabant* and the sea
Between Utrecht* and Westphalia
Prosperity and peace dominate
With your churches and castles,
With your little homes on the dike
Gelderland, you are the pearl
Of our Dutch kingdom
Yonder the Waal*, there the Ijssel*,
Then the Maas and the Rhine as well
Give us the right to, all our lives,
Be proud of
Gelderland
I wish I could feel the same pride and love for my country as I used to in previous lives.
No, I am not gone, just busy with
other projects. As I am getting used to speak of my darkest side and deepest
thoughts everywhere, the bitter and long night watches are becoming less
frequent. In the future I will probably save this place for musings (well, it
was intended right for that), ramblings, wandering thoughts and ideas,
everything that goes through my mind before I can finally put it into fine words...
But I love it too much to leave it abandoned.
The other day I was reading Song of Ice and Fire, Book 5, and tears
came to my eyes when I read the descriptions of what is like to be aboard a
ship and travel long days and nights. Since I went to the Naval Museum of Madrid around two weeks ago, my past life as James has become very present. I have
always said that my life in the Royal Navy is one that I would live over and
over again. It had its downsides, but it makes me so proud to know how much I
learned, how much I fought, how much I enjoyed each and every moment. No wonder
I feel so nostalgic when I think about it. All our past personalities are part
of who we are today, one way or the other, but probably James is the strongest
one, even when it might not seem so. I want more memories, that is for sure, there
are so many blanks to fill yet, pieces that I can’t seem to reach, both good
and bad. I had a new one the other day and I treasure them like jewels. But, as
we reincarnationists know, even the best of memories is just a brief glimpse of
the past, blurred and distant, like echoes that whisper in the dark (this
reminds me of another past life song I have to post one day).
I entitled this entry “Pitch Black”
because I have always loved that English expression. These days it is hard to
see a real “pitch black” something. Undoubtedly the only time I could see
nothing, that is to say, NOTHING AT ALL, with my eyes opened, of course, was
when I visited a cave and at the bottom of it we were told to turn our
helmet lights off, only for five minutes. It was impressive. Disturbing. Scary.
Even maddening, after a while. Or so they said, because I loved it all the
same, and though in these cases people start to talk or make japes, I would
have stayed there much longer. Maybe I would have started to see better than
ever before, even meditating.
Other “pitch black” place I have
known is the beach at night, if there is no moon and you are far enough off the
town. But usually you have a light or two at the sea, maybe a ship passing, a
beacon... It is also a bit scary, but you are near the land, quite safe, so it
is not the same as sleeping in a boat or a ship.
When I was small and my family got
up at 4:30 a.m. in the morning to drive to the coast, I would stare at the dark
sky and felt so, so happy being a witness of such beauty, of such immensity up
there... In moments like this I have always been so grateful of being alive.
And now, knowing all I know of my past lives, I wonder if I felt just the same
when I was James and breathed the salt air every night, as we were crossing the
Atlantic Ocean, after a hard day’s work. I wonder what I thought then, what I
feared, what I hoped, what I missed... Or maybe all my concerns disappeared and
I would be enchanted beholding the pitch black sky above me or the stars
shining, guiding me at night?
While I was reading that book, these words resonated to me as never before:
“On moonless nights the water was as black as maester's ink, from horizon to horizon. Dark and deep and forbidding, beautiful in a chilly sort of way, but he looked at it too long Tyrion found himself musing on how easy it would be to slip over the gunwale and drop down into that darkness”.
And even with all that darkness, they whispered to me: PEACE. Maybe it is because I knew that no one would attack in the middle of the night. Maybe it is because we would stop sailing and rest peacefully for a few hours. Maybe because those were the moments I yearned for when I was inland, attending boring sessions at the Parliament. Maybe because that was my dream come true, all that I had wished for before I became a sailor trained to kill the enemy. Reading those lines I get clear images in my head, it is one of those instances when you can suspect it is not just your imagination creating a scene from the written words, but something else that comes from deep within you. Tears keep welling in my eyes when I think about it, it is as if my heart still longs for the sea, or maybe just for that long-forgotten peace, where a man like me could just sit and watch, be proud of his crew, and dwell in the illusion that the sea was all mine to sail... if only for a while.
The Nobel Prize of Literature 2016
has been awarded to Bob Dylan. I am laughing so hard at all these “serious
writers” who are complaining about it, not because I am a fan of Bob Dylan, I
have never been, but because there is so much pedantry among writers that they
deserve just for once to be ignored. In my opinion, there are a lot of
songwriters (and many of them are heavy rock musicians) who can transmit in a
few words emotions that not even García Márquez in his A hundred years of boredom, as I use to call it, can do in hundreds
of pages.
“On the edge of despair” is one of
these songs. I have said before that this rock band, Arena, seems to be linked
to my past lives. I have to confess that I have been always been attracted to Clive
Nolan, the main “culprit” of those songs in my music collection that I would
play over and over again, including in my funeral. And I swear it is not
because of his blonde, long hair (despite that, I can’t say he is too
attractive, though I think it would be quite interesting to talk to him about a
few things). Before Arena, I knew him for being the keyboardist in Pendragon,
and so I had seen him a few times live in concert. I also knew he was an
amateur writer, and in one of those concerts I was about to approach him and
tell him: “Hey, you’re really awesome, your music and lyrics are so inspiring,
I am a writer too and your songs are always present in my stories”. I told him
nothing in the end while he was signing my ticket, but to say “I was about to”
is already a lot for me. Usually I don’t even talk to strangers or people I
have just met.
I don’t know if Clive Nolan believes
in reincarnation, though you could say so reading many of his lyrics,
especially those that deal with death and the afterlife. Of course, I don’t
think he is in any way connected to me or any of my past lives, but I just have
to wonder when he describes certain scenes so similar to my actual memories. I
don’t know if I ever mentioned here that right after I died as Katrina, I had a
memory where the soldier who had killed me took me in his arms, just a tiny
woman, a wretched thing that couldn’t bear more suffering. Well, “On the edge
of despair” is only a small part of a short story written by Clive for the
Arena album called “Contagion”. In this story, a man with certain psychic
abilities comes down to Earth and in his struggle to save mankind from an evil
he unleashed, encounters a little girl who bears the same tattoo in her hand.
She seems fragile but she is an old soul, with a rare strength and inner
knowledge. She is his hope for the future. She is about to die, and for some
time, thinking he won’t be able to save her, he is on the edge of despair.
I can’t begin to say all the
parallelisms I find in this song in relation to Katrina. The first time I
listened to it, I wasn’t reading the lyrics, but I caught the words: Too young and unprepared for such distress,
and tears welled instantly in my eyes. That was such an accurate description of
my life in WWII. When I had the chance to read them all, the meaning in them
went even deeper. The blood in the first verse, I can say it is metaphoric in
my case, as I didn’t lie with blood on my face. But I can indeed say there was
blood all over the place. It was a war after all, and I had seen pools of blood
in the streets. It is also true no one seemed to care if I live or die. I was
always quiet, a stranger among Germans who had been drafted in an occupied
city. Johann had been my only friend, but he was dead. If something, Katrina
was always so alone, so utterly alone.
She fought all she could, with all her innocence and all her youth. She never
did wrong, but evil men hurt her. The song seems to carry a message for my
current self, when I’m sunk in depression: Don't
let this life decay to misery and hate / Don't throw it away (again) -- don't leave it too late (but don’t
die too old). I have always thought I should not kill myself again... but I
don’t want to die of old age either.
When I imagine this man (this
soldier) taking me in his arms, somehow it is comforting: thinking there is
someone who did care, even though he wasn’t capable to do anything for me. I
strongly suspect one of the soldiers who knew of those sad events reincarnated
in one of my schoolmates in my current life. I still dream of him sometimes. I
am sure he liked me but never dared to approach me, there was a guilty look
in his eyes, mixed with certain sadness. I know he at least cared in my
previous life but couldn’t defend me, or he would have put his position, even
his life, in danger. I don’t think he was the same soldier that killed me, but
still, it feels as if certain silent and regretful gazes can speak worlds and
connect souls through time and space.
There is another verse that needs no
explanation: it clearly refers to reincarnation (at least from my point of
view):
There will be a time and place
You'll be sure to find me there
Praying that I won't be too late
To take you from the edge of despair
Sometimes it seems like it, but we
are never alone. There is always someone watching over us.
ON THE EDGE OF DESPAIR
Lying there - With spiders in your
hair
No one seems to care if you survive
Blood on your face - All over the place
No one seems to care if you live or you die
We're the same you know
Putting up walls and dodging the stones
We're the same you know
Walking in the crowd, but living alone
Don't let this life decay to misery and hate
Don't throw it away -- don't leave it too late
Lying there - On the edge of despair
This is where I should have been
Black and blue - All battered and bruised
This is where I should have been
Lying there - With death in the air
Too young and unprepared for such distress
Hanging on - But not for too long
Too young and unprepared for such distress
We're the same you know
Putting up walls and dodging the stones
We're the same you know
Walking in the crowd, but living alone
Don't let this life decay to misery and hate
Don't throw it away -- don't leave it too late
There will be a time and place
You'll be sure to find me there
Praying that I won't be too late
To take you from the edge of despair
We're the same you know
Putting up walls and dodging the stones
We're the same you know
Walking in the crowd, but living alone
Don't let this life decay to misery and hate
Don't throw it away -- don't leave it too late
It is 23:14 when I start writing
this and tomorrow I have to get up early for a five hours drive. It is not the
best moment to be doing this, but I don’t want these past life emotions to fade
and get lost in my mind while I enjoy my second holiday season.
Every time Katrina calls for my
attention, I want to think there is a reason. The same scenes often repeat themselves,
sometimes exactly as they were, other times expanded. The hurting keeps being
there, and I feel compelled to do something, but what?
I ask her what she wants, and the
answer is: “I want to find his grave, I want to have a place to mourn, I want
to know he’s remembered, I just want to cry”. Some of these things I can do,
like crying. But others, I just don’t seem to find my way. I have some specific
data that came with my memories, but either they are wrong, or I am not looking
in the right places, because they never match the records.
And in the meanwhile I keep reliving
these memories as if they were reoccurring nightmares. The day my worst fear
became real is one of them: losing Johann to the war. The day he died, I died with him. My
soul died. My body kept living for a while, but I wasn’t there anymore. As I
have said so many times before, I was paralyzed. I still can see everything: how
I heard his name and dropped whatever I had in my hands, how I ran and fought
to get to him, how I found him already dead on the stretcher, how I was grabbed
and pulled away. I did shout then, and cried. So much that they had to restrain
me and put me a catheter on my jugular vein to administer a sedative.
Everything went black.
And when I woke up, I was dead. The
first thing I did was taking my Virgin medal off and leaving it on the bedside
table, forgotten. I had lost my faith. I realized I was wearing a clear blue
gown and a teardrop fell and wet the cloth. Someone asked me if I wanted
something to eat, I said no. When I regained some of my strength I went to see
the doctor, to ask him if he’d let me see Johann one last time. He did, but I
couldn’t move. Johann’s body was there wrapped in one of those hideous cases to
keep corpses, but I barely could do something, with a nurse at my left and the
doctor at my right, watching that I didn’t go mad again. And I couldn’t touch him, not even hold his hand, not
even whisper some words in his ears.
I couldn’t accept it. It still feels
like a dream today. Only, dreams are not so damn real.
Maybe I can’t find his grave (yet),
but I was getting clear visual impressions of his face. So I used an online
identikit program to try and draw him. The result was impressive. Not
completely accurate, I’d say, but impressive nonetheless.
I died the day he died, with no time
to mourn. Maybe this is the first step to do so.
I have noticed July is a weird month
for me in regards to reincarnation. I have commented on this before, probably
somewhere in this blog. Maybe this year the feeling is even stronger. Things
are going great for me at the moment. Three months ago, right after my accident
skating, I decided to start physical training six days a week, alternating
yoga and fitness routines. My main objective was to fully recover my left knee
and shoulder, but then I found I was absolutely loving it and I couldn’t stop.
I have lost three kilograms in three months and I am feeling stronger. I also
found some inspiring guys like Frank Medrano or Elena Malova who also follow a
vegan diet and so I have started to focus even more in the positive things in
life. In a way I feel like in my most recent past life during the Cold War,
when I decided to leave drugs behind and work for the American Army (now I
really hope I won’t die in some kind of crash). But at the same time... there
is this uneasiness deep inside, a restlessness whose origin is not clear.
My life as an active reincarnationist
is not fulfilling at all, that is no secret. As I have repeatedly said in
several places, remembering past lives is a lonely path. The forum and various
blogs I administer are running non-stop, growing each day. They keep me quite
busy and that is fine, but I miss the old times, especially the old times when
I first arrived to Military Past Lives and found my people. People who had gone through similar experiences to mine, people who at last could understand, who knew how to listen, people who
could teach me lots of things. It is quite funny to hear certain forum users (trolls)
say I am an egotistic person, when I am always searching for people who can
teach me new things. I am no leader. I was a warship captain in one of my past
lives and I still don’t know how I could do the job. Even when I created my
forum, my thought always was: “I don’t want this to be my forum, it is a forum for its members”. Circumstances, such as my
insatiable curiosity or my thirst for knowledge, have made me an expert in my
field. The Spanish-speaking countries are full of reincarnation beginners
who want answers, and yes, I am there to help and answer those questions. But I am
not a guru, I am just a reincarnationist who wants to find other
reincarnationists to talk in deep about past lives. Not the theory, not the
superficial talk that is all around the internet, but those things that really
matter to people who remember past lives: how to deal with them. I always like
to go beyond, and you just can’t do this with beginners.
So, here I stand, feeling restless,
feeling this inner turmoil that was already there when I started to remember
past lives, perhaps because we wouldn’t move if there were no inner turmoil
inside, something to drive you on in search of answers. But years go by, and
after all I have come to know, this inner turmoil is still here, only I don’t
know where it is going to take me now. I keep feeling this strong need to
express myself, to put into words all those past life emotions left abandoned
in some corner of my soul. But when it is time to write, I am blocked. I can
ramble for hours, but the important words will remain unsaid.
I am weary. Weary of hearing always
the same doubts, of having the same discussions with scientists who don’t even
bother to talk to us, of being added against my will to stupid Facebook groups about the
afterlife where only inaccurate and frivolous articles are posted. Weary of
finding (sometimes) great accounts, but being unable to shout it out loud, due
to the witness’s completely understandable fear of being ridiculed. Weary of
having to keep it all inside, as if remembering past lives were a dirty secret
that might get you institutionalized. Weary of a world where money is all that
matters. And to avoid more weariness, while I wait for more memories to arrive,
I spend my days doing things that make me feel good, like exercise... or listening
to music.
One of those precious gifts of life
came to me unexpectedly the other day, when I listened to a special radio
broadcast in which my elder brother participated. It was about the progressive
rock band Arena. I know almost all their discography, but this jewel had gone
unnoticed until now: it is called “Sirens”. And quite eerily (as always happens
with Arena), it perfectly describes my actual mood in relation to past lives. I
think it sums it all quite well: from the first whispers of your intuition, calling
you to start the journey, to the last moments when you are about to get smashed
into the rocks and you wonder why you paid any heed to those voices. Of course,
the storm in the middle is when you are dealing with the past life memories themselves,
engulfed in those strong emotions, fearing you will get drowned. It even
mentions the one I miss the most, the one I can’t stop calling but only rarely
comes: my spiritual guide and soulmate, the real culprit of all this inner
turmoil... or is he my siren... or, better said, my merman? His song is so tantalizing, and at the same time,
so deadly. Right now I am just drifting on the sea, wondering where the tide
will take me.
I love those moments when you just
have discovered a song and you just can’t stop hearing it, but you still don’t
know the melody and all the verses by heart, so it keeps surprising you and taking you higher and higher. It is pure magic.
A few days
ago I returned home after my usual holiday season (the first of this year) at
the beach. I have been quite hectic: exercise in the morning, preparing part of
the lunch in advance, a couple of hours lying in the sun, walking along the
shore or swimming in the water, a short break, and then more time out, relaxing
both mind and body. Sounds great, doesn’t it?
Lately I
have been enjoying these holiday seasons more than ever before. When I was
young I used to feel melancholic when I was near the beach, too many past life
memories in the back of my mind, struggling to go out: my long-gone days as a
British Navy officer, my days waiting for my Norwegian sailor almost in despair,
the feelings of being already dead in a very different beach... No wonder
holidays always depressed me.
Now those
memories are not hidden, they are clear and very present, and they don’t
depress me so much. Now I still love the sound of the wooden planks beneath my
feet as I step on them, when I walk down the sea wall. It feels as if I am
aboard a ship... a real ship manned by real men. I love to wear hats that
resemble cowboy hats, because that makes me think of Colorado and the sun
hurting my eyes. I also wear a beach dress with Native American people drawn on
it, in memory of my family who was massacred by white men, and if I have a
chance, I will gladly buy a pair of earrings with the shape of dreamcatchers
for the same reason. I pretend to watch a ghostly Norwegian merchant ship on
the horizon, getting near, bringing my love home again. I do all this hoping I
will get more memories, something new I don’t know, or maybe some happy scene I
had forgotten.
But, who
knows why, this year it was the turn of the widow, so she turned up
unexpectedly in the middle of my holidays, maybe reminding me I can’t escape,
not yet. I have a slight idea of what could have triggered these new memories. Nothing
I saw, heard, wore or watched... but just a weird feeling related to a
decision: should I stay or should I go? The feeling of knowing you have to go,
but not being sure what is best for you. The feeling of having no past, no
option to come back to what is familiar to you, because you screwed it up and
no one wants to have you near, ashamed of what they say you did, no matter if
it is true or not, no matter you were declared not guilty by a judge. Being so
scared of the future ahead of you, wondering if it can get any worse, as it
eventually did.
So, I am
suddenly in this filthy inn where a charitable couple agreed to give me a job
and a bed, making clear to me that “This is no brothel”. But the meager pay
they give me for serving the tables and cleaning the living room is not enough for
my goals (just having a home and money to raise the daughter I had to leave
behind, for God’s sake!) and I have to ignore their warning. Of course clients
whisper and the charitable couple found out in the end. This is when they came
to visit me in my room and told me I must go. My crying wasn’t enough to
convince them otherwise, though at least it served me to buy me a week or two,
so that I can think what to do next and look for another place. The worst part
is I seemed to decide I’d better look for another man to give me the money and
house I would never be able to have as a poor widowed woman who could barely
read. Did I really think I would find a decent man in such a filthy inn,
soldier and all? And would I be able to feign love for him? Well, why not, when
I had been forced to fake that same love for my late husband in public for so
long?
He is dead
but I still hate him so much. He is the one to blame for my current situation. He
is the one who turned my life into a living hell. It could have been fine: such
a beautiful house, those gardens and the mare, those beautiful dresses and
social meetings. But then came the slapping, the harsh words, locking me up
in a bedroom, the black eye, the bathtub and the hairpin, the broken rib, the
silence, the white powder. “I should be happy and this is where I am”, are my
last thoughts.
When my
current self had a thought about how many lies I was forced to tell, the widow almost
shouted inside of me, saying that I shouldn’t judge. She won’t show me anymore
if I judge, as that is what everyone does. And I know. And I do want her to
bring me deep into that hell, as I feel there is so much rage and sadness and
suffering down there, beyond the coldness and the falseness. Unlike Katrina,
the widow is made up of so many layers, it is hard to get to the bottom. Still
today it is so hard to know where the victim ends and where the murderess begins.
Coincidence
or not, right after these bitter memories, I read one of the best chapters of Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3. Jamie was
telling Brienne everyone is quick to judge him for slaying the mad king without
even knowing what really happened. I think I must have felt like that for so
long in my past life.
